Toyota Australia’s Manufacturing Future Hinges on Export Plan

Toyota Australia is awaiting word on the renewal of a contract that will decide its fate as a local manufacturer.

Toyota's head office in Japan will determine this year whether to renew the Australian contract to build the next-generation Camry model for export.

Toyota says in a statement it built 106,000 vehicles in Australia last year and was the country's leading automotive exporter with more than 74,000 units shipped overseas, primarily to the Middle East.

Sales and Marketing Director Tony Cramb tells the Australian Broadcasting Corp. he believes Toyota can survive as Australia’s only vehicle manufacturer as long as there are still cars to be made.

“In order to achieve that we need to earn the next-generation of Camry with export,” an ABC transcript shows him saying. “And that decision will be made this year. So we're doing everything we can; we're controlling everything that we can control in order to secure that decision.

“That is a process that we're going through now. We're working with our suppliers and our stakeholders to determine whether or not that's possible.”

Cramb says there are many factors involved in where a vehicle is manufactured in the world.

“In the Toyota system, we need to compete with other plants for the right to produce Camry for our market and also for our export markets,” he says. “That competition, or that process, is under way right now.”

Toyota's executives in Tokyo are expected to make their decision midyear.

“That will be the point at which we make the decision about whether we're going to manufacture in Australia,” Cramb says.

If the Australian operation does not win the contract, it will have to join GM Holden and Ford and close its manufacturing plants.

Ford is to end Australian production in 2016 and GM Holden a year later.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott last month ruled out giving Toyota extra government assistance to remain in Australia, telling the Fairfax newspaper group that providing additional money is “not the right way to go.”

Toyota has said GM Holden's decision to close operations will place “unprecedented pressure” on its ability to continue, but the ABC says Abbott believes Toyota will stay put.